Hellenic is the branch of the Indo-European language family whose principal member is Greek.[3] In most classifications, Hellenic consists of Greek alone,[4][5] but some linguists use the term Hellenic to refer to a group consisting of Greek proper and other varieties thought to be related but different enough to be separate languages, either among ancient neighbouring languages[6] or among modern spoken dialects.[7]

Greek and ancient Macedonian

A family under the name "Hellenic" has been suggested to group together Greek proper and the ancient Macedonian language, which is barely attested and whose degree of relatedness to Greek is not well known. The suggestion of a "Hellenic" group with two branches, in this context, represents the idea that Macedonian was not simply a dialect within Greek but a "sibling language" outside the group of Greek varieties proper.[6][8] Other approaches include Macedonian as a dialect of Greek proper or as an unclassified Paleo-Balkan language.[9]

Modern Hellenic languages

In addition, some linguists use the term "Hellenic" to refer to modern Greek in a narrow sense together with certain other, divergent modern varieties deemed separate languages on the basis of a lack of mutual intelligibility.[10] Separate language status is most often posited for Tsakonian,[10] which is thought to be uniquely a descendant of Doric rather than Attic Greek, followed by Pontic and Cappadocian Greek of Anatolia.[11] The Griko or Italiot varieties of southern Italy are also not readily intelligible to speakers of standard Greek.[12] Separate status is sometimes also argued for Cypriot, though this is not as easily justified.[13] In contrast, Yevanic (Jewish Greek) is mutually intelligible with standard Greek but is sometimes considered a separate language for ethnic and cultural reasons.[13] Greek linguistics traditionally treats all of these as dialects of a single language.[4][14][15]